Something Worth Dreaming Of
by Red Mage
Summary: Ilendre En'delas was a dreamer as a child. Years later, she has become novice Priestess, apprentice scribe and mostly if not completely disillusioned... or at least she thinks so.
1. Disillusioned Dreamer

Ilendre used dream of many things.

Granted, some of those dreams were outright impossible: becoming the princess of Silvermoon, for instance, wasn't ever going to happen to the daughter of a merchant family she was. Some others might have been possible but still fairly unlikely, such as getting five new dresses, a career as an Arch Mage or a personal knight to save her from all troubles. Still, they were such nice dreams that Ilendre just couldn't help herself. She liked dreaming. It took her away from the dull daily life.

Nevertheless, it seemed that life – or fate, if such a notion could be believed to exist – loved playing cruel on those most sensitive and most imaginative. No matter what Ilendre dreamt of, it never seemed to come true; not even the time she had dreamt of awakening to the sunlight. No. The following day, it had of course had to rain – in Quel'thalas, where the sun was always shining.

Ilendre hadn't got five new dresses because her parents couldn't afford more than just one. She hadn't become an Arch Mage because aptitude tests had proven she had little Arcane talent at all. She hadn't found a personal knight to save her because each knight she met just looked her up their noses. Even her dream of a baby sister ended up becoming wishful thinking, because her parents weren't able to conceive another child, no matter how much they apparently tried. She would have wanted so much a cute little sister to play with, but it all was in vain. In the end, she quietly put away all her pictures of two elven girls frolicking on a sunny meadow and spent her savings on makeup instead of baby clothing and toys.

Ilendre hadn't ever been a person to give up, though: she had always worked hard for her dreams. When they had gone to visit some family friends and seen their two sons sparring, her mind had been set on the instant she had seen the younger one with a sword in his hand. The little girl had walked to the younger boy, dragged him off from wrist and made him promise to become her knight and to eventually marry her.

None of this had come true: the knight-in-training had put away his sword and entered the Magisterium, failed to finish his studies and finally disappeared for months until he had re-emerged from somewhere in a half-Wretched state. The boy had still been as considerate as the day Ilendre had met him, but the hand holding his teacup had trembled, and the smile had been careful and hesitant. He was not what she had had in her mind when she had been dreaming of her knight anymore.

So, little by little, Ilendre learned how to focus on things she could truly see in front of her and let her previous aspirations fade away. She took up inscription to help her parents' business. She studied minor cantrips and enchanting in place of real Arcane schooling. She even entered priest training when her parents, together with a local preacher, thought that she could display similar skill in healing as she had done with first aid during the Third War. The chastity vow, exercises in patience and strict discipline she had nothing against to, but she lacked faith for everything and anything. Light had betrayed her kin during the Third War, spirits and loas belonged to the primitive old Horde and Sunwell was only a construct of power, not something to revere and pray to. It made her feel like a bad priest: after all, a priest can't be really called a priest if they don't believe in what they worship.

It was not that Ilendre would have been completely unhappy with her life. She loved her parents, who had surely done their best to support her and love her. She liked working as a scribe, too, despite the fact that her fingers tended to get dirty with ink stains. She had even managed to get a job from the Magisterium: she copied books, wrote down letters that were dictated to her; filled out forms and reports when the magisters were feeling lazy or busy or a Blood Knight wanted to have a permission to arrest someone right here right now. Most of the time, the magisters seemed to ignore her plain-looking and compliant existence, only occasionally reminding her or themselves of it with an 'excellent work, miss En'delas, it seems you are worth those ten silver coins we pay per day'. In a way, Ilendre was even proud of her work and post within the Magisterium, but pride without satisfaction is like wine without an aftertaste: it fills the niche it is supposed to, but you know you're missing something out.

Every day, she woke up at the dawn and went to the priests' quarters in the Sunfury Spire first. Then, after some studying and a sermon, she switched to the other wing of the Spire and sat several hours behind her desk in the Magisterium's office. In the evening, she returned home, maybe took a small walk inside the city, frowned at the young rascals and weird folk which seemed to appear only by night in Silvermoon, and eventually went to bed.

It was a dull life. She wrote to her diary every day as well, but that was all that was left of her previous dreamy creativity. Countless of poems had been filling her papers spread all over her room when she had been a teenager; now, they had been all stashed into a locker, one she had lost the key to. It felt somewhat bemusing when Ilendre realised that she had become used to what she had been trying to escape for so many years.

Sometimes, when a rare whim led her to the streets or past the inns while she was strolling in Silvermoon, her ears registered stories of faraway travellers, hushed words of unsatisfied citizens or unnerving rumours of local merchants. Something big was going on; Deathwing threatened the world, yet the Sin'dorei had enough troubles with trying to decide on a proper form of government. Ilendre knew she played no part in any of it: her participation in the previous wars had been limited to offering first-aid to those wounded in the defence of their beautiful city, and she was an Adept and a scribe, nothing more. She wasn't filled with burning desire to battle, conquer and subjugate in the name of the Sin'dorei. She had no need to find anything worth fighting for or dying for.

Still, occasionally she found herself lost in the curls and lines of her writing and her gaze forgotten onto the shining armour or blade of a soldier, a wanderer or a champion. She found herself pondering if there was something more to life than this. If there still was something to find beyond the gates of the Thalassian Pass, something more important enough to write down than the things she scribbled onto the parchments of the Magisterium; someone to take her hand, answer her smile and walk by her side, as she had once wished.

She still sometimes wondered if there was still something in the world worth dreaming of.


	2. Conflicted Scribe

Ilendre had not been expecting Magistrix Sunwind, but she took care to hide any signs of surprise from her face. The Magisterium valued her because of even temper, and she wasn't interested in showing any deviations in her tactful yet somewhat bland obedience.

"Miss En'delas", the magistrix called as she walked to Ilendre's desk with graceful yet resolute steps, as if she had been planning each one of them in advance. "Do you have a moment of time to spare?"

"Yes, magistrix", Ilendre answered modestly and rose from her chair to curtsey to the higher-ranking woman; she didn't sit down until the magistrix had signalled her approval with a hand wave.

"You don't seem to be very busy, that is true", Magistrix Sunwind said, eyeing at the documents lying on Ilendre's desk – all of them finished and waiting in a neat pile. "Don't they have more work to give you?"

"It has been quiet lately, magistrix", Ilendre responded honestly.

"Then it is almost appropriate to give you an additional task", the magistrix continued and pulled a relatively large leather-bound book from her enchanted satchel. She put it directly in front of Ilendre on the desk. "I would like you to copy this."

Ilendre glanced at the book on her desk and nodded slowly at the female magister. She reached her hands towards the book and carefully opened it, studying the few first yellowed pages. The book was old although in a relatively good condition, and it was filled with pictures and richly-illustrated initials. It would have been easy to spend a while by simply marvelling it's beauty.

It took a moment for Ilendre to realise that she was actually looking at a storybook.

"I want to give it to my daughter." Magistrix Sunwind seemed to be responding to Ilendre's unvoiced question. "She had a child recently, and I'm sure they would both enjoy it. I will pay you an additional fee, should you finish copying the book in due time."

Ilendre stared at the book and felt a surge of questions rising inside her. This was the first time she had been offered a more complicated and time-consuming task than copying or composing a simple letter, and she was fairly sure the Magisterium scribes were not supposed to be tasked with personal business. Still, she voiced none of these thoughts when she raised her eyes from the book to the female spellcaster.

"How much time would I have?"

"My daughter's birthday is in two months. I want to give her the copy by then."

The magistrix turned around to leave, waiting for no confirmation.

"You don't need to copy the illustrations or do the covers or the binding. I will take care of those."

Then – with a quick nod, responded with a deeper and more polite one by Ilendre – she left the office, striding away almost as surprisingly as she had come.

While the meeting had been somewhat unexpected, Ilendre wasn't particularly surprised the treatment the magistrix had given her. Ilendre was a subordinate; there was no need for her to accept the task. It had been given to her, so she was expected to do it. Ilendre shrugged and closed the book, putting away the quill she had been cleaning before Magistrix Sunwind's arrival.

It was good, she supposed, to have such a sign of appreciation for her work. She could say without a tinge of arrogance – although with some pride – that she was among the best scribes in the Magisterium's office. Dependable, calm, meticulous, unexciting. Not the most flattering description, but it suited her. Sometimes it was good being treated like air, in a way.

Ilendre reorganised her thoughts and put the book away when another magister came to deliver her another task, a report to be duplicated. The day went on and ended uneventfully, and a couple of hours before the sun set down Ilendre found herself sitting in her room like always before. The only exception to the routine was the large, leather-bound book lying in front of her on her bed.

Ilendre lit the lamp next to her bed by drawing a small spell rune to its surface and and took a comfortable position on the bed as she opened the book. She decided to skip her evening walk for once to take a better look at her newest task – it was good to estimate how much time the work would take before starting, after all. She had intended to first simply flick through the pages to give herself an idea of the contents, but somehow, something went wrong. She found a word that caught her attention, then a phrase, then a whole sentence...

She was soon all but engrossed in reading.

A wave of emotions washed over Ilendre as she flipped a page after another, captivated by the old tales, legends and stories its covers held within. She realised that she had read every one of them once: the story about the girl who wanted to become a prince, the legend of the golden bird, the tale of two guiding stars and all the others. Some of them she could remember by merely looking at the illustration; others came back to her when she recognised the familiarity in their titles. She knew almost each and every story by heart, yet she felt an uncommon and almost alien pleasure as she savoured the letters on the parchments, hungering for one more page and one more tale until she had finished the book.

It had been ages since Ilendre had last felt something like that, and the realisation almost shocked her – frightened her. She had thought she had locked her dreamy, imaginative self away many years ago and that side of her personality had already withered away, making way for something more pliant, although also more detached. She regarded it as a transition from a girl to a woman when she had found herself contemplating about it – so why was the girl knocking at her heart's door?

Once she had finished, she stared at blank final page of the book. For a moment, Ilendre pondered whether she should return the storybook tomorrow and tell Magistrix Sunwind that she couldn't do the copying after all. She could make up excuses, pretend she was busier than she really was, spend more time focusing on her priest training, go ask the other magisters for additional work, endure to magistrix's wrath – or, more likely, her disappointment. The last one didn't actually worry her so much: Magistrix Sunwind was among the less temperamental members of the Magisterium, and Ilendre had had to go through criticism and reproach a few times in the past already. Ilendre doubted refusal of one task – for personal business, no less – would get her fired.

She closed the book and again stared at its front cover in silent contemplation. The night had already fallen, and she could hear the chatter of a few night owls somewhere outside. Her lamp spread its soft, unnatural light into the darkness.

After what seemed like an eternity, Ilendre picked up her lamp, sat in front of her desk, placed both the lamp and the book in front of her and began searching for her writing utensils.

Two months later, Ilendre had finished copying the storybook. She put her heart in the work: she took care in avoiding any spelling mistakes and skewed lines as perfectly as she could, and she even adorned every story with an illustrated initial, spending her expensive coloured inks and many pieces of parchment in the process of sketching, drawing, scrapping a design. Eventually, she brought the pages and the original book into the Magisterium's office and placed them on her desk, deciding to wait for Magistrix Sunwind to appear again. She managed to time the actions quite accurately on the same day as the magistrix's visit.

"Miss En'delas. Have you finished what I asked you?" she inquired as she came in, the same resolution in her gait as before. Ilendre curtseyed briefly and gestured towards the pile of pages on her desk; she had covered the first page with a blank parchment in case one of the other scribes or her visitors became curious.

The magistrix motioned her to hand over the copies, and Ilendre complied. She returned behind her desk and watched the other woman go through some pages and observe them very carefully, frown a few times and form a small gap between her burgundy lips once or twice. Ilendre was no expert of interpreting expressions, but she thought she saw a flicker of emotion or maybe even nostalgia in the Fel-green eyes of the wizardess for a fleeting moment at one point. Eventually, the magistrix finished examining the pages and locked her eyes at Ilendre again.

"Excellent work, En'delas. I judged correctly when putting my trust in your skill," she said and looked faintly amused all of a sudden. "I didn't expect you to do initials as well. You seem to have indeed enjoyed the task."

"It was an interesting change to my daily routines," Ilendre replied humbly, careful not to let any emotion in her voice.

"I see. In any case, here is the additional payment I promised you to compensate for the extent of the work," Magistrix Sunwind said, taking a small pouch off her belt and dropping it onto the desk. "I will also let the head scribe know of your diligence. Perhaps he could give you a day off to get some rest", she continued, a hint of irony or playfulness colouring her voice with the last sentence. Ilendre blinked once and then quickly turned her gaze away from the woman as a slight feeling of embarrassment reared its head inside her: she hadn't apparently been as successfully in her attempts to cover and hide the lost hours of sleep as she had hoped.

"Have a pleasant evening, miss En'delas", the magistrix spoke as she turned to leave and gave Ilendre one final glance. "Thank you."

"You are most welcome, magistrix", Ilendre answered and inclined her head.

She was left in the soft, quiet light of the office, with a mix of thoughts and emotions racing through her head.


End file.
